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Model A1419 / EMC 3070 / Mid 2017 / 3.4, 3.5 or 3.8 GHz Core i5 or 4.2 GHz Core i7 Kaby Lake Processor (ID iMac18,3) / Retina 5K display. Refer to the older iMac Intel 27" Retina 5K Display (Late 2014 & 2015) guides as the system is very similar.

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Update 2017 iMac SSD to Transcend Jetdrive 850

Hello,

I want to update my iMac 27” 2017 storage. Currently i have the 1Tb fusion drive.

I am not scared opening the iMac as i have some experience working on them.

Some people (for example @danj) discourage using the Sintech adapters so i searched for alternatives. The Transcend Jetdrive 850 seems to be compatible but is not recommended by Transcend for the iMac. I suspect this is only because the replacement is quite difficult.

Did somebody try this drive in an 2017 iMac? Does somebody know why it would not work?

Thanks

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Either OWC or Transcend SSD’s will work in your iMac. OWC took a few years to cave in to the demand of people wanting the higher throughput of the PCIe/NVMe drives over the slower SATA interface.

Transcend is just more gun shy as its quite a bit of work to get to the blade SSD socket.

Like everything else things change! OWC Aura X2 is a faster SSD so I’ve mostly installed it over the Transcend in the iMac’s and besides Transcend hesitant in supporting it also makes OWC the better choice.

Whats important is making sure you are using the correct one. Here’s a good reference: The Ultimate Guide to Apple’s Proprietary SSDs.

If someone is trying to do heavy music or graphics work I do try to aim them to the custom Samsung SSD’s Apple contracted for.

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